hills
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Riding with Ravilious
We sweep down from the opera singer’s house past Virginia Woolf’s to the Ouse flood plain, the first of our Ravilious rendezvous. A heron nonchalantly flaps overhead. The riverbank into Lewes is beautifully overgrown, my shins whipped by wild grass and flowers. Butterflies skitter about. We’re the wrong side of the Ouse for the Ravilious…
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The Old Ways and New Ways
Jump on a train west to Chichester to make the most of the forecast weather. Head for home with the wind on my back and scudding clouds and an intermittent shadow for company, looking for a route with as little tarmac as possible rather than the shortest way. Out of the city on back streets…
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Upturned
Crossing the bridge over the river the thick cold mist bites. Back in the village frozen droplets clung to the trees lining the road out. The cemetery across the field dissolving in the low cloud. It’s the kind of cold that freezes your sinuses and makes your eyes water. The grey sky is flat and…
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Monts et Rivieres
Turn left out of the drive and start climbing. Ten kilometres of up. Not steep but constant. Compared to home these hills are mountains, up through the trees to the grass plateau, real mountains jagged against the skyline ahead forty miles distant. The sticky hum of tyres on sun molten tarmac. A snack on a…
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Doorstep Epic Plus
A few years my friends Jo, George, and Oli, joined Le Club des Cinglés du Mont Ventoux. Their stories from that day led me to attempt the feat last year. Their rides that day also inspired the idea of the Doorstep Epic. I’ve toyed with the idea of having a bash at George’s particular Doorstep…
100 climbs, all of the hills, ashdown forest, barhatch lane, box hill, chalkpit lane, climbing, coldharbour lane, coombe lane, cycling, devils dyke, ditchling beacon, doorstep epic, hills, ide hill, kent, kidds hill, leith hill, morvelo, north downs, reilly cycleworks, ride everything, south downs, steyning bostal, surrey, surrey hills, sussex, the wall, toys hill, weald, white down, yorkshill
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Greenwich Mean Climb 300km [Brevet des Grimpeur du Sud ride #6]
04:29, Dyke Road, Brighton, heading for London. Underworld are played on the radio in the car and two men in their mid-forties reminisce about coming home at this time of the morning rather than going out for a bike ride. 05:47, Blackheath, London. Applying chamois cream behind a bush on the edge of Blackheath. There…
![Greenwich Mean Climb 300km [Brevet des Grimpeur du Sud ride #6]](https://themanfromicon.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/tweaked-colour-14.jpg?w=1024)
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Rapha Rising 2015
Total Ascent 9371m Ride 4: Thusday 23 July / 203km / 4111m Gagnac-sur-Cere // Camps // >> D14 // >> D1120/D120 // Montvert // Bends, then long straight // << then imm. >> by pottery // D59 Crandelles // D59 Jussac // << D922 briefly // >> D59 Marmanhac // Laroquevielle // St Cirgues-de-Jordanne //…
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AAA Milne (Brevet des Grimpeurs du Sud ride #5)
Yesterday I completed my series of Brevet Des Grimpeurs Du Sud audax with the AAA Milne. To get the badge you need to complete five 100km or more audax in the south east (Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire) which have AAA points. The AAA points are Audax UK climbing points and rides only qualify if they…
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I turn left at the bottom of the road…
…and I start to climb and climb and climb. From the river’s edge to meet the rising sun. Out of the shadows, layer upon layer of blue-green hills stretch away and morph into the sky. Out of the valley and onto the plateau, the horizon jagged like the torn edge of a piece of paper.…
the man from icon 